A combination photograph shows revelers dressed in "Dia de Muertos" or "Day of the Dead" themes as they pose for photos while taking part in the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in the Manhattan borough of New York October 31, 2015. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

A musician plays his violin next to a depiction of La Santa Muerte (Saint Death) at a shrine during Day of the Dead celebrations in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, November 2, 2015. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

Academy Award-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams has died at 63. The cause of death is thought to be suicide by asphyxiation.

Partially constructed notched burial plots are seen at the construction site of an underground tunnel designated for traditional Jewish burial at the Givat Shaul cemetery, on May 14, 2015, in Jerusalem, Israel. Underground cemetery being built by the Israeli Burial Society in Jerusalem due to a decrease in available land for traditional Jewish burials. (Photo by David Vaaknin/The Washington Post)

For the Torajan people of Indonesia, death is part of a spiritual journey: families keep the mummified remains of their deceased relatives in their homes for years – and traditionally invite them to join for lunch on a daily basis – before they are eventually buried. Here: Todeng died in 2009. A young relative of his, Sam, lights him a cigarette and changes his glasses. (Photo by Claudio Sieber Photography/The Guardian)

A Sotheby's employee holds a 110.03 carat sun-drop diamond on October 24, 2011 in London, England. The diamond is the largest yellow pear-shaped diamond in the world, and is expected to fetch between $11-15 Million USD when it is sold at auction at Sotheby's Auction house in London. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Demonstrators wear skull masks during an anti government protest, as Chile's President Michelle Bachelet delivers a speech inside the National Congress, in Valparaiso city, Chile May 21, 2016. (Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

Mortsafes were contraptions designed to protect graves from disturbance. Resurrectionists had supplied the schools of anatomy in Scotland since the early 18th century. This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies – for example the corpses of executed criminals – granted by the government, which controlled the supply.